


when the days are dry and cold

by Blink_Blue



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Bisexual Evan "Buck" Buckley, Crushes, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Sexual Assault, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blink_Blue/pseuds/Blink_Blue
Summary: After Josh's attack, he gets an unexpected late-night visit from Buck. However little he may have in common with his good friend's little brother, what he knows is that he doesn't want to be alone.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Josh Russo, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Josh Russo
Comments: 23
Kudos: 367





	when the days are dry and cold

“What are you doing here?” Josh blinks dumbly at the man before him. Behind his front door was Evan Buckley, his colleague turned close friend’s little brother. At half-past ten on a Sunday night no less. 

“Ooof.” Buck pulls his handsome features into a grimace as his eyes wash over the cuts and bruises, still swollen and painful, but not as bad as the night before.

“It looks worse than it is,” Josh says shortly. He sighs before taking a step back and beckoning a hand behind him. “Come on in.”

Buck nods in thanks. He closes the door gently behind him as he takes a look around the other man’s apartment. 

“I suppose Maddie told you, huh? I should have known.” 

“She just didn’t want you to be alone.” Buck follows him into the kitchen and sets a bottle of red down on the island, a peace offering. A brief, awkward look crosses his face for a split second before he masks it with a shy grin. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Hell no, Josh doesn’t want to talk about it. “Maybe after a glass or two,” he finally says. 

“Attaboy,” Buck says with a grin that should be too attractive to be legal.

Josh looks away and pretends to busy himself looking for wine glasses—he pretends not to notice. Nothing to make him feel even more self-conscious than usual like having a really hot guy in his apartment. 

“Us solos gotta stick together,” Buck says as he drops himself down heavily on Josh’s couch. 

“Oh no no no,” Josh cuts him off right there, his tone somewhere between annoyed and exasperated. He hands the other man a glass of wine before taking a good drink from his own. He’s careful to leave a good two feet of space between them as he sits. 

Buck tries to meet his eyes, but Josh stubbornly evades him. 

Fuck, they barely know each other, Josh thinks. Where the hell could this night be going?

“What is it?” Buck presses as the other man refuses to meet his gaze.

“Don’t… just don’t compare me and you. It’s—” Josh groans and drops his head back onto the couch. “It’s embarrassing. As if I wasn’t humiliated enough,” he adds. Poor gay, single Josh, who thought for a second that some nice, sweet guy could have possibly been interested in him. 

What an idiot he was.

Buck awkwardly turns his head away. He couldn’t honestly say that anything like that had ever happened to him before. But he hopes he can be a good friend about it. When Maddie told him what happened to Josh, he was shocked for a moment, and then furious. Not that he was even remotely close to the guy, but he still wanted to do something to help. 

Which is why he came over tonight. Unannounced. 

“What did you mean by that?” He eventually asks. 

Josh stares at him.

“Don’t compare me and you,” Buck waves his hand between them. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

“Ha!” Josh can’t help but let out a laugh, which he immediately regrets because it pulls at the cuts on his face. He winces and touches his tender lip. “Come on,” he looks at Buck, eyebrows raised because it’s so _obvious._

Buck stares at him like it’s not. 

“Look at you!” Josh finally says. “You could get anyone you want! Man or woman, people are constantly jumping at the chance to get with you! Tell me I’m wrong!”

Buck pulls a face and looks away. He’s shaking his head when Josh cuts him off. 

“Please! Firefighter. Hero. The brave and courageous fireman who literally fought his way back from hell after a life-changing injury in a serial _bomber_ attack. You’re amazing,” Josh says with a grin before his expression turns somber. “And then there’s me. Sad, pathetic loser who can’t even get an online date that’s not a scam.” 

“You’re not a loser,” Buck says quietly.

They nurse their drinks as a quiet moment passes between them.

“I’m just… humiliated,” Josh finally says. 

“I’m sorry,” Buck says quietly. He doesn’t really know what else to say.

Josh is starting to think spending the night alone would have been a better option when Buck speaks up again. 

“I bet I could tell some war stories that would make you laugh.”

Josh snorts, already chuckling at what Evan Buckley might consider a dating war story.

“Come on,” Buck throws him a bright grin, “What d’ya say?”

“Alright,” Josh nods. “Give me your best shot.”

Buck’s grin grows wider and he shifts, turning his body to face him on the couch. “Alright, picture this,” he raises his hands like he’s painting a picture. “First date, with a beautiful woman. She’s _older.”_ Buck fucking winks at him. “And mature. And I mean, I am just head over heels for this woman. I swear, I’d never met anyone like her before. Never met anyone who made me _feel_ that way before, you know? Like those butterflies in your gut that tell you it’s something really special.”

Josh doesn’t know, but he’s not going to mention it. He swallows and beckons the other man to continue. 

“So we’re at dinner. Really nice restaurant. And I’m doing my best to keep my cool and not say anything embarrassing. We’re eating Italian by the way. Everything’s going great… and then I start choking.”

Josh raises his eyebrows. 

“I don’t mean I’m not able to perform,” Buck clarifies with a stern look. “I mean, I am literally choking on my food.”

“Oh my god,” Josh bursts out laughing.

“The waiter tries the heimlich—nothing. She’s pounding me on the back and I can’t fucking breathe. I _pass out.”_

“No way.”

“There’s no time to wait for the paramedics! No, no, no… in 911 operator fashion, she calls for help and…” 

It takes him a second. “Emergency tracheotomy?”

Buck nods and ducks his head, hands raised in finger guns. “Got it in one.”

“You’re serious?” Josh laughs. “That is insane.”

“It was _mortifying_. But also kind of hot to have a chick save your life like that.”

“Okay, you were right,” Josh admits, bowing his head in defeat. “That was a pretty bad date.”

Buck sighs and looks a bit forlorn. “Hot date with a beautiful woman ruined by complimentary bread.”

Josh snorts and takes a drink from his glass.

The two of them lapse into a comfortable silence. Buck finishes his wine and carefully looks over before speaking, “I really am sorry for what happened to you. I can’t even imagine what that feels like…” 

“I don’t need you feeling sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” Buck clarifies. “I think you’re feeling sorry for yourself. And speaking from personal experience, after the year that I’ve had… feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t get you very far.”

Josh shakes his head. “Having hope is the worst part. I actually thought, for a minute, I actually thought this cute, funny, charismatic guy was attracted to me. I feel like such a moron.”

“You’re not a moron, you were the victim of a sociopath. I’m serious,” Buck says when the other man rolls his eyes. “There’s so many crazies out there, you’re lucky all they wanted was your wallet.”

But there’s something in the way that Buck says it, a twinge of something dark and bitter that causes Josh to frown and do a double-take. “What do you mean by that?”

Buck suddenly seems to realize he said too much. “N-nothing,” he stutters, looking away. “Forget I said anything.”

“Buck. Tell me.”

Buck looks genuinely uncomfortable for the first time that evening. “Alright,” he finally says. He bites his bottom lip and asks, “do you want to hear the story of my _actual_ worst date?”

“What could be worse than your date cutting into your windpipe?”

Buck shifts uneasily and starts, “it was a year or two after school. I was… kind of lost at the time. Doing a bunch of random jobs, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I was sleeping around… a lot. And, one night… I met this guy at a bar.”

Josh can’t help the flutter in his chest. Maddie mentioned more than once to him that her brother likes both, but the vibes he got were hard to read the few times they met. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. 

But when Buck continues, his words are the last thing he wants to hear.

“Anyway, we really hit it off. We talked for hours, and then I brought him home for a night cap.” Buck pauses and frowns. “The weird thing is that I always considered myself having a pretty high tolerance for alcohol. In school, I was the one who never puked. Last one standing at the end of the night, you know?”

When Josh realizes Buck is looking at him waiting for an answer, he stutters, “kind of.”

“There was no way a half dozen drinks over three hours at the bar plus a _light beer_ , leaves my head spinning and me not able to see straight.” 

Josh’s heart drops into his stomach. “Buck, did he…” 

“He tried. It was real fucked up. But I managed to sock him in the face and then I stumbled-ran into the bathroom.”

“Did you call 911?”

“See now, that would have been smart,” Buck nods. “Instead, I threw myself out of a second-story window and broke my arm in two places.” 

“Shit, Buck.” Josh doesn’t know what else to say. “That was…”

“Attempted rape? Yeah,” Buck says dryly. “So they say. I guess he didn’t think I was a sure thing. Shocking, I know.” He adds, after seeing the look on Josh’s face. 

“That’s awful.”

“I was fine. Nothing actually happened.”

“That doesn’t make it okay, Buck.” 

Josh must have made a face because Buck looks away. He hopes it wasn’t pitying. 

“It was a long time ago. I’m over it.”

But the thing is, Josh has heard enough over the end of a phone line to know that this isn’t something a person just gets over. He knows there can be scars, deep and invisible. And if not properly cared for, they can fester. 

“Is that why you don’t date guys?” He asks softly.

“Nah,” Buck finally says after a while. He gives him a small half-smile. “Just haven’t met the right guy.”

Josh feels his cheeks warm and he suddenly fixes his gaze on a spot on his lap as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “What I would give for someone to think of me as the right guy.”

“You’ll find someone,” Buck says lightly.

Josh doesn’t feel very confident about that. Not when the dating pool is already limited due to his sexuality. Add in the muggers and would-be rapists and it’s suddenly a pool he has no interest in jumping in. 

“What’s wrong?” Buck asks.

“It just… feels bad complaining about a few scrapes and bruises when you just told me… you know.”

Buck winces and looks away. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s fine! I’m glad you told me. I’m glad you feel like you can confide in me. I mean,” Josh swallows and takes a shaky breath. “We barely know each other.”

Buck’s eyes drop. The normally bright crystal baby blues suddenly look grey in the dim light of his living room. Josh kind of has the feeling Buck’s not quite in the room anymore.

“I never told anyone what really happened.”

“Not even the police?”

Buck slowly shakes his head. “The guy was long gone by the time the paramedics got to me. I told them I drank too much and fell out the window trying a dumb stunt. I never mentioned the guy and… I guess they just ignored whatever they found in my system.”

Buck pauses and looks up. “I never even told Maddie. Please don’t…” His voice trails off, looking more vulnerable than Josh had ever seen him. 

“Of course not,” Josh says quickly. “Thank you, for telling me.”

Buck nods slowly. “Therapy isn't really my thing, but… it kind of feels good to get that off my chest. You’re a really good guy, Josh. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

It was kind of touching, except the context was trauma and gay-bashing and how is anyone supposed to trust anyone in this day and age? He wants to be mad. To scream that good people don’t deserve bad things happening to them. But instead, he just feels tired. 

“I just want someone to notice me,” Josh says softly. “I mean _really_ notice me.”

Buck smiles bitterly. “Don’t we all.”

“So there is a guy.”

Buck groans and looks away. But there’s a smile tugging at his lips. A welcome sight after the melancholy of their evening. 

Josh smiles. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know pining when I see it.”

“You don’t know—” 

“Eddie Diaz?”

Buck sputters helplessly and it says more than an entire novel. “How did you know?” He finally asks.

“Oh, I’ve heard things,” Josh teases lightly.

Buck pulls a face. “From Maddie, right?”

“Not just from Maddie,” Josh clarifies. “But yes, she is convinced that you two are meant for each other and that you’ll grow old together after raising that sweet boy of his.”

Buck chuckles and looks genuinely embarrassed. The way he gets whenever someone mistakens him and Eddie as a couple, or calls Christopher his son.

“It’s… it’s the look on your face when you talk about him,” Josh explains. “It’s like he is your entire world, and nothing else matters to you but his happiness.”

“Do I really look like that?” Buck sounds honest-to-god surprised. 

Josh nods, eyebrows raised high. He saw the look on poker night when Buck couldn’t stop gushing over Christopher. He saw it the day Maddie invited him to happy hour with the 118 crew and Buck was glued to Eddie’s side the entire night. Never has he seen a man so in love, than the way Buck looks at Eddie. 

The one upside to the painful jealous gnawing in his gut—knowing that he might never find a man to look at him the same way, is that it doesn’t get his hopes up about Buck. The last thing he needs is to be the guy pining over his friend’s hot brother. Her really, _really_ hot brother. 

“Yeah,” Josh finally says with a small grin. 

“Shit.”

“You’re in love with him,” Josh says simply. “It’s so obvious, a blind man could see it.”

“Everyone except him apparently,” Buck says forlornly. He sighs heavily and finally admits it out loud. “I’m in love with him.”

He looks to Josh, a mix of desperation and pleading in his eyes. “What do I do?”

“Babe, I wish I had the answers for you,” Josh grins softly. “But I don’t. And I think you might be on your own for this one. My advice? Let him know how you really feel. His answer might surprise you. And let’s be real… people like us could really use a win right now.”

Buck tilts his head, a small grin on his lips. “You know… I didn’t think I’d be baring my soul tonight.” 

Josh gives him a light shove with his elbow. “And I didn’t think I’d have the pleasure of the company of such a cute guy in my apartment.”

Buck laughs. “I guess I’m alright. Not exactly a catch.”

Josh manages a derisive snort. “You are totally a catch.”

“I’m a recovering sex addict in love with his straight best friend.” Buck chuckles and tries to laugh it off but Josh reaches over and grabs his hand in a firm grip. He’s stern and confident and feeling uncharacteristically sure of himself. 

“Evan Buckley, you are a wonderful man. You are strong, and courageous, and loving, and you have _so_ much to give.”

Buck blinks and takes a slow shuddering breath. “Thank you,” he says softly. “You know, I came over tonight to make _you_ feel better.”

“You did,” Josh says honestly. “And I definitely appreciate the company.”

And then Buck does something completely unexpected. He leans over and presses a gentle kiss to his lips. It’s soft and sweet and only lasts a brief moment. But it causes those butterflies in his stomach that Buck was talking about earlier. 

“Um… what was that?” Josh asks hoarsely after they part.

“I just felt like doing it,” Buck whispers.

Josh grins and presses a hand against the other man’s chest. He pushes him away gently. His cheeks burn and he really hopes it’s not noticeable. 

“Alright, slugger. Maybe it’s time to sleep it off.”

Buck laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m acting of my own volition.”

Josh leans back and grins. He doesn’t need to figure out Buck’s misguided drama. He knows where he stands, and he certainly would like to think that Maddie had given him enough warning about her unpredictable brother to fend off any foolish advances. 

Though not necessarily unwanted. 

“This was really great, Buck… but I don’t want you to regret anything.”

Buck nods solemnly and leans back, closing his eyes. “I don’t have the best impulse control,” he admits.

“You’re better than you think,” Josh murmurs.

Buck hums under his breath. “Maybe I should go.”

Josh laughs lightly. “No judgment, Buck.” He leans back as well and watches the ceiling. “It’s good that you’ve found someone, you know.”

“I guess,” Buck says softly. “Doesn’t feel great sometimes.”

Josh doesn’t say anything. He blinks slowly and closes his eyes. No one has the answers, and no one has the magical words that will fix the injustices of the world. 

But for now, they sit in silence, enjoying each other’s company. And for a moment, everything is okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> [x](http://winters-blue-children.tumblr.com)


End file.
